13 week rambling

I am now 13 weeks pregnant with this precious baby. Just one week left of the first trimester. It's nice to know I'm out of the woods in miscarriage territory, but in my case, that's not the worry here. Yes, I worried a bit anyway (especially when some of my precious fellow BLMs (baby loss moms) miscarried their sweet rainbows) but I know my problem lies later on in pregnancy. I do like to believe that all this baby needs is for my blood to be thinner, which is what my daily injections are doing. Maybe that's all that went wrong for Avery. Blood clots forming in her cord that cut off her nutrients. Maybe that will never happen again now that we know what is wrong with my body. These are the thoughts I have a lot of the time, convincing myself that I'll never know additional loss. And a lot of times I really believe it.

I already feel physically pregnant. Last week, my stomach started to round out a lot more. I'm not tiny to begin with, but with Avery, I didn't think I looked pregnant at all until about 18 weeks. Here I am, at 13 weeks, looking pregnant and not just fat. I would say that means this baby is doing well, on track for size. Avery never was and they never noticed.

I've already been able to find baby's heartbeat with our doppler twice in the past two weeks. I love it so much. But as soon as I find it and Daniel confirms that it's not my pulse that I've found, I just start laughing and lose it again. I can't imagine ever taking that precious heartbeat for granted.

Lately, I'm feeling impatient about finding out baby's gender. I have an appointment with the perinatologist again on May 13th when I'm just two days shy of 20 weeks. I'm pretty sure they'll do another ultrasound and I'd assume they could tell me the sex of the baby by then. That's just a little more than 6 weeks away!! I can't wait to put a name to this little miracle. This little one is such an intimate part of us and it feels so wrong not even knowing the gender or name. People have been asking me if I have any intuition telling me which it'll be. At first I had absolutely no inkling whatsoever, but so many people have been saying they think it's a boy. I guess since then, I have been picturing a boy more, but I still find myself picturing a girl too. I really have no preference. I just want to bring him or her home with us! The only thing that makes me prefer a boy is that I have no girls' names that I'm in love with. I have a list of 'okay' names that I'm not even sure I can fathom using. Our boy name is chosen though. He will be Jude. Just like Avery would have been if she'd been a boy. I've loved that name for at least four years now.

I'm so excited to find out who this little love is. But even more excited to bring him or her home with us to stay. <3